The Heritage Council has called for an expansion of the Traditional Farm Buildings Grant Scheme, as the scheme is oversubscribed despite applications still being open for another ten days.
Virginia Teehan, CEO of The Heritage Council, said that through the grant scheme, the Council aims to work with farmers to manage what is important to them on their land and conserve them.
She described the scheme as "really competitive" with over 200 appliations already this year, while only 70 to 80 projects can be done annually.
The grants, for the conservation and repair of traditional farm buildings and related structures, range from €4,000 to €30,000 with 75% coverage of the total costs.
Ms Teehan said that buildings are marks of previous generations of farmers who have invested time and energy using local materials to create structures and the scheme last year created over 31,000 hours of employment for traditional craftspeople, such as masons.
All across the country there are sheds, walls, cobblestone yards and other buildings and "there’s a great affection for them and we are privileged to work with farmers on them protect these buildings", she said, adding that conservation experts advise farmers on various options for the reuse of the building, but the general idea is to keep what is good and adopt new materials to allow the reuse of the buildings.
At the moment, the Council is only working with farmers who have demonstrated a commitment to protecting biodiversity and have protected their farm against the impacts of climate change.
"We would like to see the scheme expanded, there is a lot more work to be done," Ms Teehan said.
"At the moment have to prioritise those farmers working with a particular approach to farming, a philosophical approach and ideally we'd like to include more farmers, but in the management of State funds we have to ensure we are managing the funds properly and getting value of money for the tax payer."
Although there are restrictions, she said she would encourage people to value those traditional buildings as they are an important part of the landscape that is generally valued, as a Council survey in review last year said 97% now saw the value in restoring old farm buildings instead of creating new buildings.
Ms Teehan added that the scheme was about promoting living heritage and making thing useable and part of everyday life, not something of the past.
